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New Trends in Soviet Social Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

Arvid Brodersen*
Affiliation:
Graduate Faculty, New School for Social Research, New York

Extract

The situation of scientific and scholarly thought in the Soviet Union is perhaps most clearly illuminated by a comparison of the status of the natural and applied sciences (technology, medicine, agricultural sciences) with that of the social and human sciences. It is true, the ideology of the state requires certain beliefs to be professed also with regard to the reality of nature, and readers of the official Soviet journal of doctrine, Problems of Philosophy, would, for instance, learn that important developments in modern science like Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy, or cybernetics, or symbolic logic are being condemned as contrary to materialism. However, if readers were to conclude that Soviet science and technology are at present in fact operating without the benefit of these concepts and tools, they would be utterly mistaken.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1958

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References

1 Ivan London, “A Note on Soviet Science,” Russian Review, Jan., 1957, p. 40.

2 Brown, G. E., “Physics in the Soviet Union,” Soviet Studies, VI, 132 Google Scholar.

3 Cf. my article, “Soviet Social Science and Our Own,” in Social Research, Vol. 24, No. 3 (1957) p. 274 if., 281 ff.

4 For an account of this phase of the story, cf. Moore, Barrington, Jr., Terror and Progress USSR. (Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 148 ff.Google Scholar

5 For details, cf. Stuart Rice, “Statistical Conceptions in the Soviet Union,” Review of Economics and Statistics (Harvard), 1952.

6 Ibid., p. 82

7 Ibid., p. 83

8 Loc. cit.

9 K. V. Ostrovitianov, “Report on Statistical Conference,” Soviet Studies. VI, 321-31. Introductory note by the editor.

10 Loc. cit.

11 For comments on the inadequacy of Soviet statistics, cf. for example the special issue of Soviet Survey (No. 10, 1956), devoted to the social sciences in the USSR, esp. p. 10; and my article, op. cit., Social Research, p. 274 ff.

12 J. V. Stalin, “Concerning Marxism in Linguistics,” English translation published by Soviet News (London, 1950), p. 16.

13 Ibid., p. 16.

14 Ibid., p. 9.

15 Ibid., p. 15.

16 Ibid., p. 27.

17 Ibid., p. 5.

18 Ibid., p. 6.

19 Ibid., p. 9.

20 Ibid., p.15.

21 Vogt, Hans, “Stalin og den sprakvitenskapelige diskusjon i Soyjetsamveldet.” Samtiden (Oslo) 1951. pp. 7487 Google Scholar.

22 Cohen, Marcel, Pour une sociologie de langage (Paris 1957), p. 30 fGoogle Scholar.

23 Greimas, A. J., “Pour une sociologie de langage,” Arguments (Paris) Vol. I, No. 1, p. 19.Google Scholar

24 Cit. from Soviet Survey (London), No. 10, 1956, p. 8.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Stalin, op. cit., p. 17.

28 Ibid.

29 Cit. from Lange, M. G., Wissenschqft im totalitaren Staat. (Stuttgart-Dusseldorf, 1955), p. 202.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., p. 198.

31 Ibid., p. 199.

32 Ibid., p. 191.

33 Hazard, John, The Soviet System of Government. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 83.Google Scholar

34 Lange, M. G., Totalitäre Erziehung (Stuttgart-Dusseldorf, 1954), p. 207 Google Scholar.

35 M. G. Lange, Wissenschaft im totalitaren Staat, p. 269.